NORRTULLSLIGAN (The Norrtull Gang) belongs among the most courageous and enjoyable films of the European decade. The intertitles are reflecting a person’s thoughts and memories. The four who make up the "gang" take city life in their stride. One loses her job after campaigning for strike action at the office. Another resigns after the boss has flirted with her once too often. Followed by drinks in the Red Foyer. (29.6.)
Premiere SUPER ART MARKET
The most recent film marketed by Arsenal distribution is Zoran Solomun's SUPER ART MARKET (2009), the premiere of which is on June 25 at Arsenal in the presence of the director. The film deals with the marketing of contemporary art, with which more money has been made than ever before from 2002 to 2008. The hunger for modern art at art fairs around the world seemed insatiable. A new money aristocracy speculated with pictures and sculptures as if they were stocks. The true protagonists of this development, however, were gallerists and art dealers. SUPER ART MARKET focuses on five gallerists: Leo König from the USA, Judy Lybke from Deutschland, Lorenz Helbling from China, Mihai Pop from Romania, and Laura Bartlett from England. The end of the shooting coincided with the commencing financial crisis in the summer of 2008 – in autumn of that year, some galleries had already gone bankrupt.
Arabs and Terrorism
The Berlin research program "Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe" (EUME), located at the Wissenschaftskolleg, and the "Zentrum Moderner Orient" present as a Berlin premiere a cinematic research project, the documentary WHAT IS SAID ABOUT ARABS AND TERRORISM (USA 2006) by Bassam Haddad. The film critically examines the Western discourse (especially in the USA under Bush) that implicitly and often also explicitly insinuates a connection between Arabs and "terrorism". It does so by means of interviews with well-known persons from the media, from politics and science, as well as with people in the street. In the edit, the statements from various sides of the ideological divide turn into a sort of dialog. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker Bassam Haddad, moderated by Sinan Antoon, currently EUME Fellow. The event is in English. (June 15)
Exhibiting Film History – A colloquium of the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen (18.–20. 6.)
Film museums are concerned with preserving and presenting film history. But how can a museum do justice to the special features of the medium of film with its specific temporal and technical preconditions? How can film be exhibited as both an artistic product and a cultural and historical document, and how should it be contextualized? How do film museums meet the in part contradictory requirements of collecting and preserving, on the one hand, and presenting and conveying, on the other? How do they contribute to film-historical canonizations – and what is their relation to the "fringes" and "undercurrents" of a for the most part nationally oriented presentation of film history?
Art of Mediation (7): Films about films and film restoration
To preserve films means to perform work on the hidden body of an immaterial art. The DVD, in particular, has drawn attention to this special form of dealing with cinema: A real standard for reproduction reports has been developed for reissues that can convey the basics of chemical-mechanical prerequisites, diverse approaches to an archival practice and conflicting attitudes to the history of film. Martin Koerber of the Deutsche Kinemathek will address the broad range of topics relevant to restoration. Afterwards, the film PABST WIEDER SEHEN (D 1997) by Jacobsen, Koerber and Perraudin will be shown, which, based on concrete examples of the work of G.W. Pabst, demonstrates the most important aspects of film restoration.
FilmDokument
Under the direction of the architect Richard Paulick, a "film committee for construction and settlement" in 1926 produces the cultural film series WIE WOHNEN WIR GESUND UND WIRTSCHAFTLICH? (HOW DO WE LIVE HEALTHY AND ECONOMICALLY?) . It decries the housing shortage in large cities and points to alternatives such as settlement buildings and Walter Gropius' residential building in Dessau. DAS BAUHAUS UND SEINE BAUWEISE (1926) presents the rational building methods applied in the settlement Dessau-Törten. Spots advertise for free homeownership through home purchase savings, for furniture made by the reform workshops of Gildenhall and for hygiene in everyday life. Informational films on the "Frankfurt kitchen" and the Haarer kitchen demonstrate how the work of the housewife can be optimized. In 1930 Slatan Dudow states that the housing situation of workers is a problem of time that can only be solved politically.
An event of CineGraph Babelsberg with the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv and the Deutsche Kinemathek. In cooperation with Medienzentrum Frankfurt e.V. Introduction: Jeanpaul Goergen (June 8)
HELLO GOODBYE
We are very delighted to be able to comply to the request of many visitors to repeat the French film HELLO GOODBYE (Graham Guit, Frankreich 2008/June.6.), which was entirely sold out during the Berlin Jewish Film Festival. This wonderful comedy sheds light on the question of Jewish identity from all sides. In search of their Jewish roots, Gisèle and Alain (Fanny Ardant and Gérard Depardieu) move to Israel. But after just a few weeks in their new homeland, the first problems arise. When Alain loses his job, both suddenly belong to all the moneyless immigrants who are not fully able to speak Hebrew. In addition to the two French stars Ardant and Depardieu, the Israeli actors Lior Ashkenazi, as a young rabbi, and Sasson Gabai, as a policeman, give brilliant performances.
Frieda Grafe – Selected Writings
On the occasion of the publication of the index, the twelfth and last volume of Frieda Grafe’s "Ausgewählte Schriften in Einzelbänden" by Verlag Brinkmann & Bose, edited by Enno Patalas, we would like to commemorate the film critic, who was singular in her thinking and writing, and draw attention to the complete edition of her writings. Along with a reading of Grafe’s texts, we will screen Jean-Marie Straub's DER BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN UND DER ZUHÄLTER (The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp, FRG 1968) and the rodeo movie THE LUSTY MEN (USA 1952) by Nicholas Ray, with Robert Mitchum, Arthur Kennedy and Susan Hayward. The film tells the story of life on the road, of the wish to find a place to stay, of the compulsion to succeed and the fear of failure. In 1977 Frieda Grafe wrote: "These cowboys are so washed-out. They can no longer bear the image that words burden them with." And in 1983: "Today, THE LUSTY MEN appears as the beginning of the end: The dream factory and the American dream are superimposed."
UdK Seminar: Spaces of Transition and Shifts
Bunkers from the Second World War, Japanese homesteads and bridges in the human brain are the scenes of the second part of the UDK series Spaces of Transition and Shifts. Light is once again shed on parallel worlds, traumatic spaces, and predetermined breaking points of reality.
Swedish Film Marathon: 14 Swedish films from Tuesday morning till Wednesday afternoon (June 30)
HETS (Torment, Alf Sjöberg, 1944)
After the screenplay of Ingmar Bergman, Alf Sjöberg directed an intensive and gripping drama about a sadistic teacher who harasses his pupils and even drives a female high-school graduate to death. While the students endure the suffering, their parents do not call the teaching methods into question. The first filmed screenplay of Ingmar Bergman is stylistically modeled on German Expressionism and film noir.
Funded by:
Arsenal on Location is funded by the Capital Cultural Fund
The international programs of Arsenal on Location are a cooperation with the Goethe-Institut
